Professor of English
Joslin@wmich.edu
I am the author of Jane Addams, A Writer’s Life (University of Illinois Press, 2004) and Edith Wharton in the Women Writer’s Series (Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, 1991). My scholarly work focuses on writers at the turn into the twentieth century, such writers as Addams and Wharton and also Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Theodore Dreiser in America and Virginia Woolf and Emile Zola in Europe. In my classes, I bring social, intellectual and political history together with literary studies, using interdisciplinary American studies perspectives. Currently, I am looking at the literary nature of books written by social, political, and scientific writers, including Addams, Theodore Roosevelt, and Rachel Carson.
Education
PhD Northwestern University, American Literature, Harrison Hayford, Director
MA Northwestern University, English
BA Oakland University, magna cum laude, English
Teaching
Professor of English, WMU, 1997
Associate Professor of English, WMU, 1991-96
Assistant Professor of English, WMU, 1986-1990
Assistant Professor of English, Iowa State University, 1985-86
Instructor, Northwestern University, 1984-85
Administration
Director, Program in American Studies, WMU, 1999-2004
Director, Graduate Studies, English Department, WMU, 1997-99
Assistant to the Dean for Curriculum, College of Arts & Science, WMU,
1995-96
Professional Development
Management Development Program, Harvard University, June 2000
Seminar for Directors, American Studies Association, Montreal, 1999; Seattle,
1998
Seminar for Graduate Directors, Modern Language Association, Lowell, June,
1997
Institute in Integrative Studies, Miami University of Ohio, June, 1996
Grants
Fulbright Summer Institute for the Study of the United States, P.I., 2001,
$176,000
Fulbright Summer Institute for the Study of the United States, P.I., 2000,
$172,000
USIA Summer Institute in American Studies, P.I., 1999, $170,000
Professional Activities Grant, WMU, 1993, $1000
Faculty Research Grant, Provost’s Office, WMU, 1991, $1500
Faculty Research Fellowship, WMU, 1987, $3000
New Faculty Research Grant, WMU, 1987, $2000
Graduate Research Grant, Northwestern University, 1982, $500
Alumnae Fellowship, NU, 1981, $6000
Awards
Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award, WMU, 1997
Nomination, Michigan State Teaching Award, 1990
Administrative Merit Awards, WMU, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1994, 1991,
1990
Dean of Arts and Sciences Merit Award, WMU, 1996
Department Merit Awards, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989,
1988
Sabbatical Leave Awards, 2000-01, 1993-94
Books
Jane Addams, A Writer’s Life (Urbana and Chicago: University
of Illinois Press, 2004).
Edith Wharton, Women Writer’s Series, general editors,
Eva Figes and Adele King (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1991;
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991; paperback edition, 1994).
Edited Books and Introductions
American Feminism: Key Source Documents, 1848-1920,
edited by Janet Beer, Anne-Marie Ford and Katherine Joslin, 4 volumes
(London and New York: Routledge, 2003); Introductions to Volume III and
IV by Katherine Joslin.
A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil by Jane Addams, new edition
with Introduction by Katherine Joslin (Urbana and Chicago, University
of Illinois Press, 2002).
Peace and Bread in Time of War by Jane Addams, new edition with
Introduction by Katherine Joslin (Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois
Press, 2002).
Wretched Exotic: Essay on Edith Wharton in Europe, edited by
Katherine Joslin and Alan Price (New York: Peter Lang, 1993; paperback
edition, 1996).
Chapters in Books
“Honest Reminiscence: Jane Addams on War and Peace,” in Landscapes
of Memory, edited by Isabel Gil (Lisbon: Catholic University of Portugal
Press, 2004).
“Jane Addams as Naturalist: Turning the Theory Inside Out”
in Twisted from the Ordinary: Essays on American Literary Naturalism,
edited by Mary E. Papke (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003).
“‘Embattled Tendencies’: Wharton, Woolf and the Dialogics
of Modernism” in Special Relationships: Anglo-American Antagonisms
and Affinities, 1854-1938, edited by Janet Beer and Bridget Bennett
(Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002).
“Jane Addams” in Dictionary of Midwestern Literature:
Volume One, The Authors, general editor, Philip A. Greasley (Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001).
“Architectonic or Episodic?: Edith Wharton, Gender, and The Fruit
of the Tree" in A Forward Glance: New Essays on Edith Wharton,
edited by Clare Colquitt, Susan Goodman, and Candace Waid (Newark: University
of Delaware Press, 1999; London: Associated University Presses, 1999).
“Slum Angels: The White Slave Narrative in Theodore Dreiser’s
Jennie Gerhardt,” in Women, Migration and Movement: Narratives
of Relocation, edited by Susan L. Roberson (Columbia and London:
University of Missouri Press, 1998).
“Literary Cross-Dressing: Jane Addams Finds Her Voice in Democracy
and Social Ethics,” in Femmes de conscience: Aspects du feminisme
Americain, 1848-1875 (Paris: Sorbonne Press, 1994).
“Fleeing the Sewer: George Sand, Edith Wharton, and Literary Innovation,”
in Wretched Exotic (1993).
“Finding the Self at Home: Chopin’s The Awakening and Cather’s
The Professor’s House” in Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond
the Bayou, edited by Lynda Boren and Sara deSaussure Davis (Baton
Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1992).
Essays and Reviews
“Diseases of the Body Politic: Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins
Gilman,” Janet Beer and Katherine Joslin, Journal of American
Studies, lead essay, issue on Women in America (Fall 1999).
Review of Personal Property by Margit Stange, Modern Fiction Studies
(Fall 1999).
“Experimental Moralist: Jane Addams as Storyteller,” Excavatio,
volume VIII (Fall 1997).
“Edith Wharton in Paris,” Edith Wharton Review, guest
editors with introduction, Katherine Joslin and Alan Price (Spring 1992).
“Reading Wharton’s Letters,” essay/review of The
Letters of Edith Wharton, edited by RWB Lewis and Nancy Lewis, Review,
volume 12 (1990).
“Edith Wharton at 125, College Literature, XIV, 3 (Fall
1987); lead essay.
“Reply to Louis Auchincloss,” Wharton Newsletter,
II, 2 (Fall 1984).
“What Lubbock Didn’t Say,” Wharton Newsletter,
I, 1 (Spring 1984).
Referee at Presses and Journals
University of Illinois Press, 2004
PMLA, 2001
University Press of Florida, 2000
University of Arizona Press, 1998
Northeastern University Press, 1994
Peter Lang Publishers, 1994
Conference Papers
“‘I Want to Know the Truth’: Mary Church Terrell and
the Rape of White Women,” Session on Non-Fiction Prose, Modern Language
Association, Philadelphia, December, 2004.
“The Art of Science Writing: Jane Addams and Rachel Carson,”
NEW-CUE Conference, Boothbay, Maine, June, 2004.
“Honest Reminiscence: Jane Addams on War and Peace,” Keynote
Address, “Landscapes of Memory: Envisaging the Past/Remembering
the Future,” Portuguese Anglo-American Studies, Catholic University
of Portugal, Lisbon, April, 2003.
“Jane Addams and Sophie Chen: Reading the Letters,” Plenary
Address, “Sino/US Relations at the Turn of the Century,” Northeastern
University, Shenyang, China, May, 2001.
“Playing with the Big Boys: Jane Addams and William James,”
Special Session, “Fictions of Peace,” Modern Language Association,
Washington DC, December, 2000.
“Living in the City: Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins Gilman in
Chicago,” with Janet Beer, “Still at Issue: Progressive Era
Women Writers,” American Studies Association, Montreal, October,
1999.
“Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Diseases of the Body
Politic,” with Janet Beer, Gilman Conference, Skidmore College,
Saratoga Spring, June, 1997.
“Dislocation in the Regional Writing of Willa Cather and Anzia Yezierska,”
with Janet Beer, “History, Memory and Critique, International Society
for the Study of European Ideas, Utrecht, August, 1996.
“Slum Angels: Adams and Dreiser on Poor Women in Chicago,”
Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Division, MLA, Chicago, December
1995.
“Beware! Addams and Wharton on White Slavery,” Youngstown
University Conference, “Working-Class Studies, Working-Class Lives,
Youngstown, June, 1995.
Women’s Poetry, Poster Presentation, NGO Forum, Fourth United Nations
Conference on Women, Huairou, China, Septemeber, 1995.
“Jane Addams and Theodore Dreiser on White Slavery,” American
Literature Association, San Diego, May, 1994.
“Fleeing the Sewer: George Sand, Edith Wharton, and Literary Innovation,”
Edith Wharton Society, “Edith Wharton in Paris,” Paris, June,
1991.
“Life-Giving Spirit: Edith Wharton’s Letters to Women,”
American Culture Association, Toronto, March, 1990.
“Spectral Desire: Facing Middle Age in Wharton’s The Mother’s
Recompense, American Culture Association, St. Louis, April, 1989.
“Edith Wharton’s Place in the Literary Canon,” University
of Groningen, Groningen, June, 1988.
“Woman Hater (?): Pussy Wharton’s Letters to Sally Norton
and Daisy Chanler,” Edith Wharton Society, “Edith Wharton:
Woman of Letters,” New York, October, 1988.
“Vernon Lee and Lily Bart: Edith Wharton’s Feminism,”
MLA, San Francisco, December, 1987.
“Literary Longevity,” Plenary Address, Edith Wharton Society,
“Edith Wharton at The Mount,” Lenox, June, 1987.
“What Percy Lubbock Didn’t Say about Edith Wharton,”
MLA, New York, December, 1983.
“Nineteenth-Century Female Relationships: Decoding the Letters,”
Northwestern University, 1981.
Chair and Director at Conferences
Chair, “Fictions of Peace: Women Writers in the Progressive Era,”
MLA, Washington DC, December, 2000.
Chair, “Ghosting, Taking, Making Lives,” Auto/Biography and
Life Writing, MLA, Toronto, 1997.
Delegate, Citizen Ambassador People to People Program, United States/China
Joint Conference on Women Issues, Beijing, August, 1996.
Chair, “The View from New York: Wharton, Whitman, and Cahan,”
MLA, New York, December, 1993.
Chair, “Depicting Community,” American Literature Association,
San Diego, June, 1993.
Director, “Edith Wharton in Paris,” Mona Bismarck Foundation,
Paris, June 28-July 1, 1991 (120 participants from 10 countries).
Co-Director, National Wharton Conference, “Edith Wharton at The
Mount,” Lenox, June, 1987.
Chair, “Versions of Community,” American Literature I Session,
Midwest MLA, St. Louis, November, 1990.
Chair, “Edith Wharton and Naturalism,” Special Session, MLA,
Chicago, December, 1985.
University Committees
Strategic Planning Committee, Arts and Sciences, 2000-01
North Central Accreditation Committee, 1999-2000
Undergraduate Studies Council, 1999
Graduate Studies Council, 1998-2000; 1995-97
Chair, Tenure and Promotion Committee, English, 1998-99; member 1997-98
Chair, Policy Committee, English, 1994-95, 1990-91
Chair, College Curriculum Committee, 1995-96, 1992-93
Associations
Modern Language Association, 1892-present
American Studies Association, 1998-present
Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, 1997-present
Edith Wharton Society, 1985-present; president, 1985; Executive Board,
1985-93
Irwin Union Bank, Advisory Board, 2001-present